You definitely don't have better things to do than see Terri Clark in a unique kind of concert setting.
The country superstar has been one of Nashville's strongest hit-makers and also one of the most consistent during the past 20 years. Her first smash was her debut single, Better Things To Do, back in 1995 and her most recent is the hat-trick of releases off the album Some Songs that came out in late 2014.
In between, the list is staggering. Girls Lie Too, No Fear, Now That I Found You, You're Easy On The Eyes, When Boy Meets Girl, If I Were You, Dirty Girl, and that's just a smattering of the really big ones.
Throw in some high-profile cover songs like the Trooper classic We're Here For A Good Time, the Warren Zevon smasher Poor Poor Pitiful Me, and a whole album of golden oldies from the Nashville vault and you've got a career that has been as applauded in the United States as it is beloved in her home county of Canada.
She'll tell you all about it, too.
This tour - a full-tilt run across Canada - is just Terri Clark alone on the stage doing the hit list, the new stuff, the obscure favourites and a whole lot of conversation.
She has always had the personality of a comedian and commentator, which has transformed into duties as awards show host, radio personality (she was the co-host of America's Morning Show on Nash-FM and recently took over as the new host of the four-hour radio show Country Gold previously emceed by Randy Owen of Alabama) and now she takes it to a whole new and deeply personal level.
The hall-of-fame music manager Brian Ferriman, who guided Michelle Wright's rise to stardom, among other artists (including Prince George's Gary Fjellgaard), once said, one night in Prince George while working with B.B. King, that "rock 'n' roll is high tech and country is high touch." The audience connection drives the whole country music industry, he explained. So, in that vein, Clark is now doing what no other platinum-selling artist has ever done in Prince George, or perhaps anywhere on this national tour.
She is opening the show up to audience conversation. A live Q&A is part of the show.
"It's an emotional journey and it goes beyond just the past 21 years of my recording career," she told The Citizen in a phone call this week. "It goes back to Medicine Hat when I was 13, 14 years old and how this whole thing started. I talk a lot about personal stuff: losing my mom, relationships, being a kid, entering talent contests, how I got to Nashville, and Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, how I got into recording, where the songs came from, and there are even stories about this tour because in a retrospective discussion like this you want to go from then till now. There have been some really funny, quirky moments on this tour and by the time I get to B.C. I'll be 35 shows into this thing, and every audience is different and unique so I never say the same things from night to night."
Doesn't it worry her that an unvetted Q&A will bring up vulnerabilities, or cross the lines of good taste? Or even just get too personal?
"It has been a really respectful experience so far," she said, but confessed she was particularly worried about what might get brought up during her Medicine Hat show. It ended up being really funny, she said, but she's someone who peppers her conversations with jokes and chuckles and lets her humour show.
Still to come, though, is the Vancouver Island leg of the tour.
Her family moved to B.C., prompting her to buy a house in Sooke for a few years, and that is where her mother died of cancer in 2010, so she expects the emotions to be at high tide during that set of shows.
"Every night I'm talking about it," she said, so it is as much a healing process as fan interaction.
"This tour is different and special as compared to the other ones because there is no buffer, no band, it's just me and the stories, laying it all out there. It's emotional spillage. Because there are no boundaries between me and the audience, it gets emotionally charged. It's such a journey. People are definitely less shy, by the end, because they see how I've let it all hang out, pretty much.
"There have been some amazing connections with audiences. I told my booking agent the other day that if this was the last tour I ever do - it won't be, but if it was - then I would be happy forever ending it here. That's how great this has been."
If only it was recorded for posterity. Clark confessed this was not a reality TV show masquerading as a concert tour. The rich experience of it all has made her and the audience alike openly wish it had been so. With her ample abilities as a host, perhaps that's an idea fit for a visionary broadcasting corporation.
If good stories don't convince you, she also has three Juno Awards, eight CCMA awards, and she's the only Canadian woman ever inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. She'll be pleased to sing and speak with you at Vanier Hall on Nov. 4 (also Quesnel on Nov. 7).
Tickets are available exclusively at Studio 2880.
